


The Secret-Keeper's Club

by variative



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Republic Commando Series - Karen Traviss
Genre: Canon Compliant, Clone Wars Saved Exchange 2020, F/M, First Time, Implied/Referenced Abuse, So canon compliant that Atin is a virgin and everything, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25702330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/variative/pseuds/variative
Summary: “Sometimes,” Atin admitted, “I feel like if I don’t kill him I’ll die. I shouldn’t feel that way. I know it makes me a bad person.”“I don’t think it makes you a bad person at all,” Laseema said. “I understand completely.”
Relationships: Laseema/RC-3222 | Atin Skirata
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49
Collections: Clone Wars Saved Exchange 2020





	The Secret-Keeper's Club

**Author's Note:**

  * For [countessofbiscuit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessofbiscuit/gifts).



> I was going to make this half Atin's POV and half Laseema's, but instead it decided to be more of a 25-75 situation... I will excuse this by saying that we as readers more or less know what Atin's deal is as a character, and know basically nothing about what's going on with Laseema. On that note, Laseema's backstory deals with themes of implied sexual assault/abuse and trafficking, and so the tag refers both to her past and Atin's history with Vau.

Everyone dispersed from the main room at Jusik’s dismissal, exiting quickly now that the action was over. Atin tracked Vau as he vanished into the ‘fresher, Mird slinking behind him like an oversized rat, but he kept his face calm and impassive, and flicked his gaze back to Jusik once Vau was out of sight. Incongruous in sleep clothes and a bad case of bedhead, the General showed no sign of the power that had thrown Atin and Vau to opposite sides of the room, and for a moment Atin struggled to accept that the revenge he’d held on to for so long had been waylaid by such an underwhelming figure.

There was a furrow of disappointment and profound weariness creasing Jusik’s brow as he approached Atin with a bacta spray. For a moment, rage lit through Atin’s body like a lightning strike, and he wanted to lash out at Jusik, too, punish the smaller man for daring to keep Atin from living out what he knew, in some dark humiliated place, was nothing but his most closely held fantasy. A swell of emotion lodged in Atin’s throat, and he breathed in steadily and swallowed it back, closing his eyes as Jusik dabbed at his face. He could feel the pain of his broken nose and his pulse going a klick a minute, but it felt distant. Jusik was distant, too. Atin’s breathing remained steady, quiet and reasonable, and that was closer. Oddly, his chest hurt. Not low, where Vau had kneed him: higher, in his stomach and behind his solar plexus.

The sound of his name jarred him back to the present. He blinked at Jusik and barely registered the instruction to go lie down, to sleep it off. But his body got the message, and he stood up and moved off towards Omega’s room.

_I apologize to my former trainee for any pain I may have caused him._

Abruptly Atin was so angry his vision washed out white and he shuddered all over, his hands clenching into fists so tight his knuckles ached _._ That fucking monster, that _shabiir_ _hut’uun_ —if that sniveling little _rat_ of a man hadn’t broken them apart—

“Okay, Atin?”

That was Fi’s voice. Atin focused. That was Fi, kneeling in front of Atin, who was sitting on his bed. He didn’t remember coming into the room at all.

Atin nodded. Fi was holding on to his knee, and the heat of his skin through Atin’s blacks was so—it reminded Atin of how long it had been. His squad, and casual friendly touch, and sleeping crammed two to a berth tube before they grew so big they barely fit in one by themselves, and other things that Atin didn’t like to remember but didn’t have much choice in when he had to twist around or tip his head far back and the scars pulled with the movement.

Atin swallowed and said, his voice dull and faraway to his own ears, “I’m tired, Fi. I just want to get some sleep.” He pulled his legs up onto the bed and lay down with his back to the room. Blood throbbed in his swelling-up face and his pulse was the loudest thing he could hear. Breathe in for five, out for eight. It didn’t help. His heart was still going and he still felt like someone had clenched a fist in his guts, and his breathing slid hard and panicky even though he tried to keep to the pattern. He stifled the sound in his hand, clamped over his mouth.

The others left him alone. He wasn’t sure if it was because he really seemed like the calm and dispassionate body he was pretending to be, or if they could see right through him.

After a while the lights turned out. Atin didn’t sleep. He listened to the others breathe and snore and for a while it was enough to distract him, enough to keep him calm. But he didn’t sleep. He checked his comm for the time; minutes crawled by, agonizingly at first and then worse, where it seemed like every second slid away meaninglessly and morning would never get any closer. Around 0200 the night stretched endlessly into a dark pit where time circled and his thoughts circled and his heart kept pounding, and Atin couldn’t stop himself from crying. Tears slid hot down his face and behind his eyes it felt like screaming and his throat hurt worse than anything.

At around 0300 Atin thought for a long time about killing himself, since killing Vau hadn’t worked. Then he finally fell asleep.

#

Laseema came up, the next day. She looked around the common room, at Omega clustered in one corner and Delta hanging together in another, Jusik and Kal and Mereel awkwardly balancing the room at the center table. Atin felt her eyes on him, and he knew she saw him staring dead-eyed at Jusik. He was trying to be coy about it and he was pretty sure none of the others had noticed that he was at the moment just a pure dark pit of hate inside, although he hoped Jusik could tell, since Vau wasn’t in the room to target and Atin wasn’t completely sure that he could have consciously been that angry at Vau without resorting again to violence. It was like a game, seeing how normal he could act while maintaining a focused metal beam of rage right at the back of the general’s blond head, and it was about all that was keeping him steady at the moment, so he didn’t stop, but he took a breath and tried to focus; Laseema was walking towards him.

Atin stood as she drew up in front of him and really looked at her for the first time since she’d stepped into the room. Her eyes were big and dark, worried, and she was so pretty it took his breath away.

“Atin,” she said softly. “What happened?”

A lump formed in Atin’s throat and he looked down. He didn’t know how to say it, he didn’t want to say it: _I tried to kill Vau and Jusik stopped me._ He wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t really that angry. If there was violence and rage and hate in him, Atin didn’t want to tell Laseema about it, because what if she decided he was dangerous, what if she was afraid, what if she didn’t want to be with him, and Atin swallowed hard and opened his mouth, and a hand landed on his shoulder and Fi was saying, “Why don’t you two lovebirds find some alone time, hmm,” steering them out of the room into the hallway.

The door closed behind them.

“Atin,” Laseema said again, so gently. There was an odd rasping sound filling Atin’s ears; he realized that it was his own labored breathing. Laseema took his hand with one of hers and wrapped the other around his elbow and walked him down the hallway. Atin followed, focused singularly on the feeling of her incredibly soft and small hand in his. The headache that had been following him around for days now kicked up a notch and the backs of his eyes burned. He couldn’t decide if it was alright to cry in front of Laseema. He was worried that soon she would sit him down somewhere and ask him to explain himself and then he wouldn’t have a choice.

They went into the room Atin shared with the rest of Omega, and she sat on the bunk. Atin sat next to her automatically, and braced his elbows on his knees and carefully cupped his hands around his forehead, as if she couldn’t see straight past them to his red face and twin black eyes, couldn’t hear him struggling to master his breathing. He closed his watering eyes and sniffed, hunching up on himself pathetically.

Laseema was quiet for too long. Atin couldn’t stand it; he burned with humiliation. But then she said, “I heard what happened,” and it was worse, knowing that she knew.

“How?” Atin’s voice was a throaty croak that he tried to clear unsuccessfully.

“Niner came down and told me this morning. Why do you think I came up?”

Atin shivered and snorted out a wet laugh. “Just to catch a look at my pretty face, I guess.”

Laseema chucked indulgently and after a beat of hesitation so palpable that Atin sensed it without looking at her, put her hand on his thigh, just above his knee. He looked down at her blue small hand on the wide span of his leg, vibrant against his maroon fatigues, and saw that she had a split in one of her cuticles, a sliver of dry dark blood showing nearly black at the edge of her nail. His heart squeezed in his chest.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Fuck, Atin thought, his eyes running over. Fuck, I don’t know. The words were in his throat, the words to explain himself, to argue, to justify. He could tell her everything, and it would be pretty easy, but it was also easy to imagine the way that she might look at him after. She would take her hand off his leg. She would start casting nervous looks towards the door, and maybe she would even stand up, unable to look at him.

“No,” he said, turning his face away and feeling like a huge burning knot was choking up in the center of his chest. He took a steadying breath and it snagged and shuddered wetly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Laseema said.

“Sorry,” Atin blurted, guilty. He sniffed and pinched his nose gingerly, then rubbed his fingers on his fatigues. “I know you’re probably wondering—and I guess I told Fi about it, so I should—I’m sorry.”

“Niner told me some,” Laseema said, her eyes focusing on Atin until he felt blissfully that the only thing that existed was the two of them and the room they were in, taking his cheek in her hand, her thumb sliding along the edge of his jaw. Her skin was cool and he realized that her hands were callused and dry. The feeling of it, skin on skin, drew a wave of prickling sensation up the back of his neck and he remembered again how rare it was that anyone touched him, gently or just for the sake of touching. “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“Okay,” Atin said, relieved and disappointed at the same time and in perfectly equal measure.

“I don’t always want to tell people things either,” Laseema said, her voice changing, tensing. Atin looked sideways at her and saw the tip of a lek flicking spasmodically against her ribs. Her hand was tight on his leg and he covered it with his own, and she blinked and looked at him, her expression slack and distracted. “So you really don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Relief washed through Atin. Knowing that he didn’t have to tell her—knowing that he didn’t have to make excuses about why he couldn’t—made the vision he’d had of her confused and nervous and disturbed expression, her withdrawing hand, vanish like a mirage. Atin met her gaze and saw that her eyes were very serious, as if she was making a promise to him.

“Okay,” he said again, “I understand,” and somehow felt as if he was making a promise to her in return.

Laseema nodded. “I thought you might,” she murmured, her gaze tracing over Atin’s face, her thumb stroking along the line of his jaw. A frown creased her brow, a dark glower of consternation; she touched his cheekbone, just under his eye. The bruises, he realized. She was looking at the swollen, forming bruises, and probably at the scar.

“I’m really sorry,” Atin said, his voice suddenly coming thick and unsteady. He cleared his throat and ducked his head again, pulling away from Laseema’s gentle touch. Shame coursed through him, swelled hot and aching in his chest.

“Why in the cosmos are you sorry?”

He couldn’t read her tone at all. It wasn’t cold, it wasn’t empty, but it was inscrutable, and that made Atin shiver with apprehension. It was getting hard to open his mouth and explain himself, with that enormous ball of snarled feeling lodged in his chest. “I know,” he said faintly, and swallowed and tried again, “I know you’ve had—you’ve maybe had a hard time. With—with men, I mean. And I don’t want…” His throat swelled up. Atin tried to clear it and the only sound that came out was a thin wheeze. He tried again and it rattled wetly out of him. “I didn’t want you to think that I was just some… some _hut’uun_ with a temper.”

“I don’t think that of you,” Laseema said. But Atin plowed on, nervous, staring down hard at his hands and trying to beat back the headache that was making everything feel and sound so far away from him.

“Sometimes,” he admitted softly, “I feel like if I don’t kill him I’ll die.”

“You mean Walon Vau.” Cool fingertips laid against Atin’s cheek and he shivered, feeling almost feverish. “That man with the sword—he did this to you.”

Atin nodded and sniffed and squeezed his eyes shut. A pair of fat, heavy tears skated down his cheeks. “I shouldn’t feel that way. I know it makes me a bad person.”

“No,” Laseema said, her voice cutting sharply through the quiet air of the room. Atin tensed, and her hand dropped to Atin’s shoulder.

“What?” Atin swallowed a mouthful of salt and looked up at her, hope and wary confusion warring in his chest. That deep crease was still carved between her brows, but looking properly Atin understood that her expression was surprised and very serious and a little sad, and not at all angry or afraid. Laseema squeezed his shoulder and looked hard into Atin’s face, as if she could peel back all the layers of him and dig straight down to the truth. Maybe she could. Atin’s mouth was dry.

“I don’t think it makes you a bad person at all,” she said. “I understand completely.”

###

By the time they were milling around the party, Laseema on Atin’s arm and probably looking just as starry-eyed as she felt, Atin seemed to be doing much better. The bruises under his eyes were livid, but the blank, thick hate she’d seen him aiming at Jusik and and Vau was gone. It was only by watching closely—and Laseema had been—that it was possible to notice the tightness that formed around his eyes and the corners of his mouth when he happened to glimpse either one of them through the crowd of GAR commandos and CIS officers.

More than Atin’s hand on hers, the gentle touches at her waist and upper back, the attentive way he turned his head when she spoke as if he wanted to drink in the sound of her voice, what was really strange and dazzling was the presence and politeness of the officers. Underworld Police or CIS, usually they were no friend to Twilek women. At least, not to the sort of Twilek woman that Laseema was. But these men, here, were friendly and courteous to a fault, aside from one or two leering glances that Laseema had registered half out of the corner of her eye. One had even doffed his hat to her. That more than the hungry stares of the others had made her draw close to Atin, hugging his arm to her chest with one hand tight around his bicep while she extended the other to shake, as if the man might have tried to grab her and drag her off.

It had never occurred to her to try and snag herself a military man, that it might have brought her this sort of protection. They weren’t the sort who usually came through the places Laseema had worked, Qibbu’s included, and when they did they weren’t anything like the clones. They weren’t anything like Atin.

As if he could hear her thinking about him, Atin squeezed Laseema’s hand and said something close to her ear. She started out of her train of thought and blinked up at him, smiling automatically and trying to look as if she’d heard what he’d said. Atin was watching her with concern, his mouth solemn and his eyes on her face, waiting.

“Yeah,” she said gracelessly, and realized that she couldn’t have dropped her smile if she’d tried. Even when Atin smiled a little at her in return and started leading her through the crowd towards the edge of the room, and she realized that he must have asked if she wanted to get out of there or get some fresh air or something else to get her alone. _I don’t mind,_ she thought, hanging onto his arm. _I don’t really mind at all._

“I think it’s about to get pretty loud,” Atin was saying. “I heard them talking about a _Dha Werda._ ”

“I don’t know what that is,” Laseema said, swallowing her embarrassment. She could stumble her way through most of the languages common to the mid-lower levels, but Mandalorians didn’t make up much of the population on Coruscant. Listening to the sergeants and the Null boys talk amongst themselves had Laseema adrift in the strange flow of vowels and sharp consonants. She supposed that if she was going to keep hanging around Atin she might want to learn some, but hadn’t felt brave enough to ask yet. Everything had been so new, and then there had been the fight with Vau, and Atin had obviously been in so much pain. There hadn’t been time to ask about something that was so frivolous by comparison.

“It’s a traditional Mandalorian dance,” Atin said. His face was bright and eager, tracking the conversation around the room as men started to form up. “It’s pretty fast-paced.”

Laseema pulled herself close to his body, bumping their hips together. “You don’t think I can handle fast-paced?”

Like a flipped switch, Atin turned red. Laseema smiled privately. But to his credit, he didn’t try to stammer excuses or apologies, just said swiftly, “That’s not quite what I meant,” and closed his mouth tight.

“I’m just teasing,” Laseema said, amused, her lips curling around a smile, her voice soft so that she had to lean up and say it close to his ear. “I’d like to watch, if you’re going to join in.”

Atin’s blush deepened. “It’s been a while. I’d probably end up breaking my nose all over again.”

“You’d still be handsome with a crooked nose.”

Atin looked down and dithered. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Then let’s get out of here. I could use some quiet.” Laseema pressed her breasts against his upper arm as she clutched it to her. She was goading him, and it wasn’t fair; she was a professional, or had been for a while anyway, and he had probably never seen a woman close up before. But she couldn’t stand the indecision. And polite or not, it was starting to make her nervous to loiter around all those officers, especially as they worked themselves deeper in the drinks.

Atin agreed very readily, his blush deepening as they wound their way out of the club until the pale scar across his face stood out lividly. They walked hand in hand down the nearly-deserted hallway outside the doors of the club. The rest of the building felt cooler and abandoned in the way of places adjacent to those inhabited by crowds, and was so quiet that Laseema’s ear cones rung faintly. The sound of chatter had been louder than she’d realized. It was a relief to be out; she even felt comforted as they stepped outside, the humid Coruscant night air wrapping around her skin. She had been on the planet so long that she hardly noticed the gritty way it coated her tongue anymore, and it was worlds better on the surface than the low-mid levels Laseema usually stuck to.

“What do you want to do now?”

Atin asked the question innocently enough. Laseema was sure that she could have said anything at all—she could have told Atin that she wanted to clean the grease traps in Qibbu’s kitchen—and he would have come without complaint.

It made her feel brave, and generous. “Let’s go back to my apartment,” she said. “I don’t think you’ve been over yet.”

Atin shook his head. Of course he hadn’t; Laseema knew that well enough. It was only a level down from Qibbu’s, but the nearest Levelevator was a fifteen minute walk, and from there it was another twenty to the inn. It wasn’t convenient, and it wasn’t worth showing off.

Suddenly Laseema remembered the towering stack of dirty plates and take-away containers in the sink, and the faint musty smell her thin, lumpy mattress was starting to give off, and the dancing outfit that she had been kicking back and forth across the floor for weeks, every time she got up for work or came home after a shift since she’d dropped it there the last time she danced, just before the clones showed up and Qibbu had stopped making her perform after the kitchen closed for the night.

Laseema swallowed. “Or we could go to back Qibbu’s. No one is there right now—we’d have the whole place to ourselves.”

A nervousness eased out of Atin’s expression, a wall-eyed look so subtle she hadn’t even noticed until it was gone. “That—yeah, that sounds good.”

He went to the edge of the walkway to hail a cab, and Laseema stuck her hands deep in the pockets of her tunic, hunching against the loss of warmth at her side. A big, aching knot of affection and sympathy was swelling in her chest. A grown man who knew twice as many ways to kill, maim, disarm, and disable than the roughest trade Laseema had ever let put hands on her could have imagined, and who somehow managed to be nervous at the thought of seeing where a pretty girl slept.

It was funny. She’d grown out of fantasizing about a knight in shining armor who would sweep her off her feet and turn her life around. She’d grown out of fantasizing about a man who would just love her, too; didn’t waste time she didn’t have thinking about someone else in her kitchen helping her cook and clean, putting a few extra credits in the bank, holding her hand as they walked down the street to buy groceries—someone who wouldn’t end up hurting her or hating her or just tossing her aside and moving on with a better life. Laseema had become fairly well convinced that such a thing, such a man, didn’t exist. Or, if it did, then it was something that lived on the surface, in the sun, far away from penniless Twilek girls who had been lucky to have their contracts bought out by pathetic small-time mobsters and who weren’t even good enough to dance in a real club. Laseema no longer wasted time on the hope that any man who came into her life could do anything real for her.

But somehow Atin had sidestepped all the weariness and wariness Laseema had. When she thought about him, thought about being with him, it wasn’t the old worn-out fantasies or bleak expectations of a grim and disappointing reality that came to mind. It was something realer, something new, and even a possibility of the unexpected was enough to tempt her. He was the most dangerous person Laseema had ever met, she was pretty sure, and he was so angry sometimes, and she knew that there were people who he wanted to hurt, and she didn’t know exactly why. But she was pretty sure that he would never hurt her on accident and never hurt her because he wanted to see her in pain. And she knew that the anger in him was the same as the anger in her. And all of that, together, seemed to have boiled around inside her head until it was cooked down into a sudden and unexpected trust. She wanted to take him home.

On the curb, Atin had managed to hail a cab, and was holding the door open. Laseema hurried over and got, sliding across to the far seat. Atin ducked inside after her and shut the door, giving the cabbie Qibbu’s address. The cabbie pulled away from the walkway with a heavy foot on the accelerator, jerking Laseema back against her seat. She leaned her head back against the rest and watched the horizon, the glittering towers and endless crosshatch of skylanes vanishing upwards into the black night sky.

“The city is really something on the surface, isn’t it?” Atin asked.

“Sometimes I forget what the sky looks like,” Laseema said.

“I don’t think I’d ever seen a real sky before we deployed on Geonosis. All we ever saw on Kamino was clouds and ceilings.”

Laseema looked over at him, unsure how to respond. Atin only met her eyes and shrugged slightly, his expression matter-of-fact.

In her very early memories Laseema recalled the huge, swallowing blue of the sky above her family’s homestead, which had sat in the high hills above the river valley and the village tucked away there. But those faint, blurred images were more like dreams than true memories. They were just a brief, impossibly distant snapshot of a time before the city, its claustrophobia and gray and metal, and the noise and lurid colors of the dance house where she had worked and trained since she was a little girl. For a moment she wanted to tell this to Atin, but she couldn’t think of a way to bring it up, and too much time passed as she hesitated, and then she thought it would sound foolish if she said anything at all. Instead she silently turned her face back to the window and watched the lights and the horizon and the deep space above it all until the cab dipped down and sank below the surface, and it rose out of sight.

They descended quickly through the levels and came out close to Qibbu’s. The cabbie hadn’t bothered to take a scenic route, which Laseema was glad for. Atin seemed to have remembered that things in the civilian world cost credits he didn’t have, and was cutting nervous glances at Laseema. She put out her hand and Atin hesitated for a moment before he took it, lacing their fingers together. She squeezed, trying to reassure him wordlessly, hoping that he wasn’t too embarrassed. It seemed to work: Atin settled back against his seat, a blush along his cheekbones and the tops of his ears barely visible in the dim light. They came up to Qibbu’s and Laseema paid, and they got out.

“Sorry,” Atin said. “I can ask Kal to pay you back.”

Laseema shrugged, uncomfortable and starting to feel a little embarrassed herself. “It’s fine.”

They came up to the restaurant entrance, and Laseema unlocked it and let them in. Sechii, the Duros guard, was slumped in the chair shoved against the wall of the entryway, apparently on door duty, and jerked upright as they came in. His red eyes flew wide for a moment before he coughed sheepishly and nodded to Laseema.

“Hey, Sechii. Long shift?”

“Don’t tell the boss,” he mumbled, ducking his head and scratching at the cast bracing his right wrist.

“What happened to your arm? That recent?” She hadn’t seen Sechii in a while; their shifts didn’t overlap.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Took a bad fall.”

Laseema made a sympathetic noise. Atin coughed awkwardly, turning to look at an ugly painting on the wall behind them.

“Look,” she said to the Duros, “You should go home, yeah? I have some stuff to take care of in the kitchen, and we can keep an eye on things. My boyfriend is a soldier, you know.”

Behind her, Atin audibly gulped. Sechii scratched his smooth green forehead and seemed to glower at Atin. “I know,” he muttered.

“So what do you say?”

“Fuck it,” Sechii muttered. He stood up and shrugged on his coat, struggling a little to work the cast through the sleeve. “Clock me out at the usual time, will you?”

Laseema nodded and waved him out the door. When he was gone she turned back to Atin. “Have you met him before?”

Atin coughed. “I heard Ordo broke a bouncer’s wrist when he came here with Kal.”

“Oh, poor Sechii. He must’ve had no idea what he was getting himself into.”

They came onto the restaurant floor, quiet and dark with the chairs all stacked on top of the tables. Laseema beelined for the bar, Atin following. He took one of the stools down and settled onto it, leaning his elbows on the bar top like an old regular and watching dubiously as Laseema brought out two tumblers.

“I noticed you boys don’t really drink,” she said, distributing ice between the cups. “I can make you something virgin.”

Atin shrugged, a wrinkle appearing between his brows. “I’ll have what you’re having.”

“Then lucky for you I’m not a hard drinker,” Laseema said, pouring generous slugs of amber liquor into each glass, eyeballing it thoughtfully before adding an extra splash to her own glass. She reached under the bar and pulled out the nozzle, adding soda to her glass. Atin picked up his and was sniffing it warily. His nose wrinkled and he set it down again quickly, but gestured for Laseema to continue. She filled it with as much soda as possible and stirred it lightly, hoping that the sweetness would offset the burn of alcohol for him.

“Alright,” she said. “Try that, if you want.”

Atin picked it up and sipped it. His face set.

Laseema giggled. “You don’t have to. Or I can make it less strong.”

“No,” Atin said, and cleared his throat. “This is fine.”

“Cheers, then,” Laseema said, tapping their glasses together before she brought hers to her lips.

#

“Wow,” Atin said. His glass was nearly empty. He slowly raised his hand to his face and touched his mouth. “I feel like I’m drugged.”

This sent Laseema into a fit of giggles, burying her face in her arms, nose against the sticky wood of the bar—her glass had already been emptied, and refilled with more liquor than soda, and was nearly empty again. When she lifted her head, still grinning, Atin’s expression was hang-dog wounded, and she grabbed his hand and shook it bracingly. “You have been,” she told him solemnly.

Atin ran his fingers along the scar that seamed his face, exploring the length of it by touch as if he’d never noticed it before. Absently he asked, “Do you have to pay for this stuff?”

Laseema shook her head, lekku slapping against her back. “Qibbu lets me drink the bottom-shelf shit. I’m nicer to customers when I’m drunk. It makes me—” she sighed, and a lek curled over her shoulder. “It makes me more relaxed.”

“Oh,” Atin said, and looked around the empty restaurant as if he could see tens of invisible patrons there all watching Laseema, wanting her to be nicer to them, wanting her to relax. His eyes fell on the platform in the center of the room. “Do you dance?”

A furious blush rose to Laseema’s cheeks and she shot a glare at the platform as if she could light it on fire with her gaze. “So what if I did?”

Atin lifted a shoulder in that laconic, ambiguous shrug and leaned his chin on his hand, looking deeply into her eyes.

Laseema braced her arms against the bar and stared back at him. “I used to, alright? Sometimes I did more than dance. It was work, I had to. Is that okay for you?”

“I guess—” Atin paused and hiccuped, covering his mouth politely. “I guess it had better be. Since I’m your boyfriend.”

Laseema stared. “What?”

“It’s what you said.” Atin waved a hand over his shoulder in the direction of the entry hall. “To that man. You said I was your boyfriend.”

“Oh, yeah,” Laseema mumbled. The undersides of her lekku felt hot.

“I just figured that a boyfriend of yours wouldn’t mind,” Atin said. “I mean, he wouldn’t mind anything you did.”

It felt hot in the bar. She undid her tunic down to her belt and pulled her arms out of it, tying the sleeves around her waist. She just had on a thin camisole underneath, but it was dark and she didn’t think Atin would object.

“You would be pretty wrong about that,” Laseema said, picking up her glass and staring down into it for a moment before she tipped it back, draining the rest of the drink.

Atin frowned, clearly perturbed, rubbing at his scar again. He kept tracing his fingertip across his lower lip where the scar bisected it, and Laseema couldn’t stop watching him do it. She leaned her elbows on the counter, pretending that she was shifting to hear him better, that she was still paying attention to their conversation at all, and stared at his full parted lips, the line of pale tough tissue that split them, his forefinger rubbing steadily back and forth across it.

“Well,” he said at last, without moving his finger from his lip, “ _I_ wouldn’t mind.”

Laseema bit her lip, trying to keep in the smile that wanted to spread across her face. Her face felt like it was glowing with heat. Probably just the alcohol, she told herself. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she admitted. “Qibbu hasn’t been having me dance lately. Not since you all moved in. My tips are such shit now—it almost makes me feel like I might have been an alright dancer after all.”

“Oh,” Atin said, his frown deepening for an instant. He dropped his hand and picked up his drink, rattling the ice melting at the bottom. “I’m sorry.”

Laseema laughed, the noise sharp and too-loud in the empty space; Atin grimaced slightly and tipped the last dregs of liquid at the bottom of the glass into his mouth. “Don’t be. I always fucking hated it anyway.”

Atin chewed on the inside of his mouth for a moment and shifted. Then he said, “How did you start?”

Laseema balled her hand into a fist and put it under her chin, and smiled a little smile that she knew was mostly a grimace. Her gaze drifted towards the platform. Her lekku twitched against her back and she drew them forward over her shoulders, hugging the ends around her upper arms. She thought about telling him, and Atin rolled his glass between his palms, the ice cubes in the bottom of his drink clinking, and then she had thought about it for so long that it had turned into not telling him at all.

At last Atin sighed and put his glass down, and Laseema thought he was going to say something—but he didn’t say anything at all, he just reached across the bar and touched the back of her hand. Laseema looked down at it. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay,” Atin said quietly. “You said there were things like this.”

Laseema nodded. “You have a good memory.”

Atin withdrew his hand, rested both of them on the bar top and stared down as if the backs of his knuckles held the answer to every question he could ever have had. “I pay attention to you.”

“You’re a kind person,” she said.

Atin laughed without looking up. “I’m not really,” he said, and the skin around his eyes tightened. He started rubbing his lip again. “I’m too angry.”

“I don’t care if you want to hurt the people who hurt you,” Laseema said, mirroring his small, emptied-out smile. She stretched across the bar, nearly laid across it and felt the collar of her camisole pull down to the bare, perfect limit of decency. She took Atin’s hands in hers, hyperaware of her knuckles brushing his jaw as she drew his hand down from his face, of her breasts moving as she breathed. Atin didn’t even glance down; his eyes were steady on hers. Something behind Laseema’s sternum squeezed painfully and to her mild horror she felt tears prickle behind her eyes. “I told you, I understand. I don’t mind.”

“Okay,” Atin said. Somehow he had shifted close without her noticing, leaned across the bar until they were halfway to nose-to-nose. His cheeks were flushed, she could tell even in the dark, and his eyes were bright and focused on her with a serious, intent expression. Laseema pulled her lekku over one shoulder and leaned in closer, tracking the scratchy pull of cheap lace down the slope of her breasts. There was no way he wouldn’t be able to see; if he even glanced down he’d have nowhere else to look but right down her shirt. But his gaze never shifted from her face for even an instant. He just watched her as if he was waiting for her to speak or move, waiting for a cue.

To Laseema that look was itself a cue. She leaned forward, feeling her shirt drag down dangerously far, and kissed him.

After a moment she coaxed his mouth open, and then he seemed to get the idea, kissing her back slowly. It was clear that he was copying her, but Laseema didn’t mind it at all: she knew she was a good kisser, so Atin was actually doing pretty well, and it was worlds better than the men who had felt the need to hold the back of her head or her lekku and crush their mouths to hers, force their tongues deep into her mouth. The scar across Atin’s mouth was a thin tough line across his lips, which were chapped and split in places and tasted faintly coppery, but his mouth was hot and sweet and faintly alcoholic and his tongue when he carefully traced it against her lower lip in imitation of her was slick and velvety and didn’t push into her mouth, and he was gentle, so Laseema was pretty sure it was going well, and the tight nervous feeling in her chest eased, and she stopped thinking about her shirt.

She put one hand on his chest, and it rose and fell sharply under her palm. “Laseema,” Atin murmured, his lips moving against hers. She drew back and opened her eyes, meeting his.

The expression she found there was wide-open: his eyes were big and nervous and his mouth was soft. He swallowed and sat back, biting his lip.

 _Are you scared?_ Laseema thought. She was perfectly unsure about how it made her feel. _Soldier boy, are you scared of me?_

But he was watching her mouth, and he hadn’t got twitchy or reluctant or asked her to slow down, so Laseema came around the bar and stood in front of Atin, and he got off the barstool and faced her, huge and dark in the neon twilight coming through the windows. He was perfectly still. He was waiting.

Laseema looped her arms around his neck and pulled herself up against his body, going up on tiptoe so she could bring their mouths together again, shivering at the feeling of his hands wrapping around her waist and keeping her body tight against his. He was so tall and so strong—she ran her hand down his arm, the muscle unnaturally dense, pictured him lifting her up and carrying her upstairs, pictured him lifting her up onto the bar, his head bowing between her legs.

Atin moaned when she sucked on his lower lip, and suddenly Laseema remembered that anyone could be watching them through the restaurant windows.

She dropped back onto her heels, keeping her hands on his shoulders. The tips of her lekku shivered against her waist and she felt hot all over. Her chest tightened at the thought of laying down with Atin even though she’d had enough to drink that it should have eased her, but it didn’t matter. She knew she could, and more than that she wanted to. Anticipation so sharp it made her queasy rose in her stomach.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she suggested, hearing the husky pitch of her own voice.

Atin blinked, and looked at her and looked at the back exit to the stairs. His shoulders squared slightly. “Okay,” he said, and wet his lips, his eyes gleaming in the dark. “Let’s go.”

Once again Laseema had her arm wound tightly through Atin’s, but now she was the one leading him, through the labyrinthine corridors of the back of the restaurant and up the stairs to the rooms. The clones were staying on the top floor where they would have access to the landing pad, but Laseema had a master key, so she led Atin up one floor and into the first room she found.

Inside it was nearly pitch black, the heavy curtains drawn over the window. Like all the rooms in Qibbu’s it was small, spare, and nominally clean. There was one bed and a fresher, and the faint smell of mildew and bleach in the air.

If Atin noticed he made no sign of it, going straight to the bed and sitting down on the edge, facing Laseema in the dark. He sat very straight and put his hands on his thighs, a patient, expectant posture that reminded her once again that she would have to lead.

“Okay,” Laseema whispered, and blushed. She walked across the room to him, and his hands rose immediately, settling on her waist. Atin stroked his thumbs lightly over her skin, the touch electric through the thin camisole, and Laseema’s breath shortened; she fisted her hands in his shirt and sucked in a deep breath, and kissed him again before he could notice her hesitation. She knew it was strange, but she knew how to cover for it too. _Why’s the girl so tense? No time to wonder if she’s already moving forward, not when you both want to get to the good part._ She slid her knees onto the bed, straddling Atin’s lap, moved against him encouragingly and felt him, hard against the inside of her thigh, just where it met her pelvis.

Atin’s hands were light and unsure, skating up her back, stroking up the length of her lekku, hovering over her shoulders. Impatient, Laseema caught his wrist and put his hand on her breast, covered it with her own in a silent encouragement that luckily didn’t require her to stop kissing him. Carefully, Atin cupped the heavy soft shape of her breast, slid his thumb over her nipple. Laseema moaned and arched into the touch, and Atin, emboldened, repeated the gesture with his other hand, and then circled both thumbs around the tightening buds. The light touches sent a glittering wash of sensation rolling over Laseema’s skin, chills racing across her neck and down her spine.

“Oh, gods,” she gasped out loud, half-despairing. She hadn’t expected her body to be so sensitive, to react so strongly. Long experience had taught her how to separate herself from her body and her partner, go away while it was happening and come back to herself when it was done, like whatever was happening between her legs was happening to someone else and she was just waiting for the time to go by. By now it was second nature. But Laseema wasn’t sure that she was prepared to want it, to be in it. She could already tell that she was going to be staying right here for this.

“Is it alright?” Atin asked. He had only drawn back from her mouth a little, speaking against her jaw when she turned her face away slightly, needing to breathe. His hands slid down along the line of Laseema’s ribs and spanned her waist, holding her securely in the precarious perch she’d taken on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah,” Laseema rasped, and tilted her head and kissed Atin’s jaw, his neck, winding her fingers through his hair and tugging to hear him gasp in surprise and pleasure. He tasted clean and uncomplicated, a little salty, his stubble scratching against Laseema’s cheek.

“Okay,” Atin said, thick and dazed and hungry, and Laseema just knew how sincere he was when he added, earnest and a little relieved, “I’m glad.”

Laseema just nodded, her mouth open against his neck, her fingers tight in the back of his fatigues. She was rolling her hips a little, and Atin hissed as she ground down too hard, rubbing mindlessly against the thick hot shape of him through the layers of their clothes. All the warning she got was his fingers tightening at her waist; then he was lifting her and turning in a single smooth movement, and Laseema was on her back, Atin braced over her in the vee of her thighs, before she had even had time to figure out how _exactly_ she’d got there.

“Hells!” she gasped, startled, her hands clenched on his shoulders, her elbows braced.

“Sorry,” Atin murmured, shifting his weight back and ducking his head. He put a hand on her knee and rubbed circles on the inside absently. “I was just… I’m fine, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

Laseema blew out a breath and softened her grip, stroked his shoulders. “Yeah,” she said, “Yeah, let’s—” and sat up awkwardly, undoing her belt and the rest of the buttons on her tunic so it opened around her, pulling her camisole over her head and tossing it aside.

Atin’s eyes got big, his mouth opened slightly, and then he stood up quick and shucked off his own clothes, peeling away the layers of his uniform as Laseema wriggled out of her pantsand shoes and underwear, kicking it onto the floor and urging Atin to hurry until she could pull him down, the huge dark mass of his body covering her completely, his mouth finding hers again with a new confidence. She wrapped her legs around his hips, hungry for it suddenly, sure that it would be good, that nauseous anticipation a tight hot sensation just below her ribs. Atin kissed her, shifted down, kissed her neck and the base of her lekku and her collarbone, and with her hand on his head guiding him, sank a little further and pulled her nipple into his mouth. She gasped and arched up against him, and he sucked and swirled his tongue and made his way down and down and down, Laseema’s hands barely guiding him along. He was hungry, he was sweet, and he got down between her thighs and spread her open with his fingers and licked her until she was squirming and moaning, riding her hips agains the pressure of his tongue. Inexperience had made him clumsy, and she had expected it, but he was so eager, and a quick study, and she gasped, half in disbelief that it was so good, it was so good—

“Atin,” she rasped, hearing her own voice stretch thin and ragged, “Come here, come up here,” tugging on his hair and then pulling him up by the shoulders until he climbed back up onto the bed, settling over her. His cock pressed into the crease between her thigh and her core and he groaned, riding it against the smooth slick skin. Laseema’s clit throbbed, her cunt clenched with need, and she reached down and put him against her entrance and sucked her own taste off his lips as he pressed inside.

She groaned, panted against the tight burning ache of him inside her. Above her Atin had gone very still, his teeth sunk deep into his lower lip and his brow screwed up as if in pain. Then he opened his eyes and looked down at her, flushed, desperate, and the look in his eyes was like he was looking at something precious.

Laseema sucked in a breath and shifted her hips, pulled her thighs up around Atin’s waist and said. “It’s alright, you can move, okay? Move.”

And Atin did, slow and cautious at first, and then she asked him for more and harder, so he hooked an arm around her leg and _got into her,_ his hips rolling, his whole body fluid and graceful and precise with that lethal strength she had seen in him from the beginning, that she had _known_ would never be used against her, just with her, heat and urgency building between her legs. Laseema pushed her hand down between them and got her fingers on her clit, her lekku winding around Atin’s wrists half-consciously as if she was trying somehow to keep him, and then her orgasm broke through her in a glittering wash of sensation that was so intense it was almost painful. She threw her head back and her whole body tightened and she gasped his name as he fucked aftershocks out of her, clinging to his shoulders and his wrists. Atin made a noise that was just an incoherent jumble of syllables, put his face in her neck and thrust a half-dozen times and came as well, his body shuddering wildly in her arms.

For a moment he slumped down, his weight settling on her, and then he seemed to remember himself and rolled off, murmuring something that sounded like an apology. Laseema sighed and stretched, rotating her wrists and ankles, a shiver running through her lekku before she rolled onto her belly with a sigh, settling. Normally she would have got to her feet and made her way to a shower or back into her clothes, but she was so tired; she felt good, her whole body humming and alive and worn-out all at once. But at the same time, that queasy spike of anticipation that she had felt at first was still there, now just the sour mire of old bad memories rolling around in her gut. She crossed her ankles and stroked her thumb back and forth over the base of her lekku, an old self-soothing gesture, and closed her eyes, trying not to think too much about Atin’s silent shadowy presence.

The bed dipped as he shifted back against the headboard, and then the only sound was that of their breathing for a while. Laseema made a conscious point not to let it synchronize, and was half-asleep despite the sour feeling when Atin blew out a sigh and his hand rested on the curve of one of her lekku, and she snapped alert.

“Laseema,” he said, low but not quite a whisper. “Are you okay?”

Laseema swallowed and nodded and realized that tears were pricking at the corners of her eyes. She was so slick and sore between her legs and Atin’s hand was heavy on her lek. “I’m okay,” she said, and rolled onto her side as Atin scooted down and curled up facing her. She reached out in the dark and touched his chest, stroked his shoulder and down his arm, felt the long straight ridges of old scars. She hadn’t realized, before, how many there were. Atin made a curious noise and she said, closing her eyes and shifting closer until she was sheltered in the curve of his body. “I haven’t always been this lucky.”

“Yeah,” Atin murmured, his voice free of the pained tension he’d held for days, for more-or-less the whole time she’d known him. “Neither have I.”

Impulsively, Laseema shifted close and kissed him, Atin’s hand stroking along the length of her lek and making her shiver, his mouth warm and soft and familiar already, somehow; the feeling of his hands on her, his skin on hers and the sweet easy manner in which he let her kiss him, all drove away the sour feelings and the bad memories inside Laseema until she was just warm and relaxed and felt very safe, and they were too faded and distant to touch her.

“I’m glad that I met you,” Atin murmured fuzzily, sinking back down into the pillows. Laseema scooted closer and he put his arm over her, his fingertips settling in the valley of her spine. He said, “I think we’re going to be okay together.”

And, even if only for a moment, Laseema believed him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! These two are beloved to me and possibly my only good het ship, so this was a real pleasure to write.


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